THE AMERICAN PRESS HUMORISTS. 17 so he would be sure to grasp my meaning I know of, if that be a compliment. The climate is a feature. This improves on acquaintance. The vegetation makes the newcomer from the East think that he has got mixed up with a lot of stage scenery. Prices are high for everything except postage stamps. Rents make the tourist from New York City feel at home quickly. Newspapers are a nickel apiece, but they are up-to-date in other respects. They treated us well editorially, and made pictures of us that were painful to contemplate. If any bachelor among us had hopes of winning out of his sad condition, those caricatures crushed every hope on the spot. Wherever we went the glad hand was shoved out ungrudgingly and there was always something in it. Hospitality was wide open and Los Angeles done us proud. Like a rare picture now, is the twilight at Mrs. Mitchell's reception with the moon silvering through the palms, and the flowers of Paul de Longpre's rosegloried home will always be fresh and fair in our memories. Oh, say, it is a good thing to be a visiting Humorist in Los Angeles. We were taken to the top of Mt. Lowe and given a bird's-eye view of Paradise. This is worth going miles to see. Mt. Lowe's name doesn't fit it. Monrovia spread all her charms before us and showed no signs that she had for sale, at reasonable prices, some of the loveliest building sites on earth. We appreciated this forbearance. We were feeling so rich by this time that we would have bought the whole town and carried it away with us. We were given a glorious splash in the Pacific at Venice and were received there by a large sized brass band playing the Dead March. It was the only public reflection cast upon us during our entire visit to Southern California. Whatever the people may have thought, they very kindly didn't express it in the harsh notes of a brass band, elsewhere. Mr. Kinney, the Doge of Venice, was away at the time, or it never would have happened. Venice has numerous canals, all dug without any help from President Roosevelt. Riverside claimed us for a day and made good. Riverside's s orange groves and grand avenues of palm and pepper trees are known wherever the English_night, on a Salt Lake Route special, with language is printed. There is nothing in the world like the auto ride up Rubido mountain and down again. They fed us at the quaintly beautiful Glenwood and sent us home unhappy-because we had to go. Friday night the Humorists turned out in all their professional paint to do stunts at the Auditorium for the benefit of the Bill Nye Monument Fund. It was a good show for the money and everybody staid till it was over. But that isn't why I know it was a good show. About a thousand dollars, more or less, were added to the fund. Los Angeles is a fine town with more of the New York atmosphere than any place Just when it happened or how, I don't know clearly, but during a lull in the rush some time, somewhere we got down to business for a minute or two and elected Frank T. Searight President of the American Press Humorists, and Judd Mortimer Lewis of Houston, Texas, Secretary and Treasurer. We did this because we decided to meet next year at Houston and needed somebody as efficient as Searight had been in Los Angeles to look after our interests in that town. Mr. Lewis gave us a guarantee to that effect and he has a job before him that he little realizes, I am sure. From Los Angeles we departed Saturday G. P. A. Peck and Douglas White in charge, bound for Goldfield, where the whole town turned out to have fun with us, and they did. They filled the day with showing us how much gold there was yet that we hadn't got our greedy paws on, and at night they pulled off a series of prize-fights at the Hippodrome Theater with Humorists getting off jokes to relieve the strain between acts. Rome in her palmiest days never saw the like of that exhibition of Hitters and Humorists. Our next pause in this career of delight was at Salt Lake City where the Herald and other newspaper men showed us what a beautiful city they have in Utah and 18 THE AMERICAN PRESS HUMORISTS. what a wonder Great Salt Lake is. A fresh joke couldn't live in that atmosphere five minutes and we carefully refrained from using anything of recent vintage. Trust a Humorist to waste his raw material. At night we were dined at the Alta club, prettier than any club house yet, and we sighed as we thought that the end of our present joys was so near. But it had to come-what do good things have any end for?-and next day we were on our way workward. Some of us had been lost in Los Angeles among friends, and some took another route from Salt Lake, but our little remnant bravely faced the East and labor and hiked hopefully back to toil. Ten minutes after the train reached Chicago we were scattered to the four winds and never on earth will be together again. This is no joke. Maybe afterwhile we shall meet over yonder where all is fair and good things never end, and I'll bet an orange that our greeting will be: Well, now, say, doesn't this remind you of Los Angeles?" 66 Up from the South, at break of day, Shot through the village, across the creek— Straight to the crest of the hill, and then Over it went, and was gone again. "Sometime," the villagers said that day, "He'll get what's coming to him, we pray!" But Hurryman, hurtling o'er the pike, To a stop he came, in a lonely spot, His engines cold, but his journals hot, His gear intact, his tires "unbust,' But his gasoline reservoir dry as dust. Stuck! On a beautiful motoring day, And gasoline twenty miles away! For a while he sat with head bowed low, Knowing the sorrow all motorists know When something goes crooked, and there you are, Cussing your luck and your motor-car. But then, as a farmer driving a team, Came by, he smiled, like a wet-sunbeam. "For a dollar you'll help me to town, I trust ?" Asked Hurryman, wishing he could say must, But the bucolic citizen laughed with glee, "By gosh, not fer five would I do it," said he, "You've killed my chickens and skeered my stock, So sit wher you air, till you turn to rock!" Hurryman begged, but the man wouldn't stay And gasoline twenty miles away! The next, and the next, of the crop-raising band Who came that way, took the self-same stand. They listened to all of his eloquent pleaBut to tow him to town, not one would agree. He tackled them all-boys, women and men But deaf, dumb and blind, they might as well been; They wouldn't go hunt for a village where he Might give to his auto a gasoline spree; They wouldn't be bribed, they wouldn't suggest Where help could be found, though he pleaded his best. In fact, it was plain that there he would stayWith gasoline twenty miles away! And so, as the shadows of night began To fall, a weary and half-famished man Took up a journey, he knew not where (And telling the truth, he didn't much care!) Around a slight bend in the road he dragged, With steps that were heavy and spirits that fagged, Wond'ring if ever, or never He stopped! And into his tracks, without a sound dropped, For a thriving young city lay nestling there Not a half mile away! As his vacant stare Took in its houses and stores, he saw A sight that added the very last straw, For there sprang into being, as night drew down, Gasoline street lights all over town! SEEING AMERICA. A seat. BY GEORGE FITCH, OF THE HERALD-TRANSCRIPT, PEORIA, ILLINOIS, IN THE AMERICAN PRESS HUMORISTS' BOOK,' LOS ANGELES, CAL. LL aboard here for a Seeing America trip in this fine, high-speed airmobile. Safe, sane and comfortable. A parachute under every We show you twice as much of the country as any of our one-cylinder, hot-air competitors. No dust, no dirt, no speed limit, no cows on the track. One more couple now. All ready. Cut loose, Bill. We're off! We are now passing over Manhattan Island. It contains three million people piled from twenty to forty layers deep, and is growing so fast that while a man is finishing the top story of his residence he is remodeling the first story to make it up-todate. We are now running a race upward with the steel office building to our left. The first to reach a height of 600 feet wins. There! We lose, gentlemen, but we always sacrifice speed to safety. Turn here west, Jim. We are now over Ohio. Notice the blue sheet of water to the north. It is Lake Erie, one of the largest collections of pure drinking water in the world. The electrical disturbance ahead of us is Senator Foraker discussing the Brownsville matter. The large dark object to our left is either a hay barn or Secretary Taft, I cannot tell which at this distance. We will now rise higher in order to pass over Vice-President Fairbanks of Indiana. The bright glittering spot to the north is James Whitcomb Riley, viewed from above. Listen to the musical sound from beneath us. That is Indianapolis, where the 1908 crop of Indiana poetry is being ripened. The This is Illinois, beneath us. No, madam, we do not pass over Chicago. It is fifty miles north of us. You do not notice it because the wind is the other way. light cloud of smoke just beneath us is Speaker Joe Cannon smoking his fourteenth after dinner cigar. On those prairies Abraham Lincoln grew up. It is lucky he grew up as far as he did, for Illinois roads are six feet deep all the year 'round. |